CPD IN THE NEWS

Gap Inc. is the latest retailer to end its practice of requiring workers to remain on-call for short-notice shifts following an inquiry from New York’s attorney general.

A spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based retailer says the decision also applies to Gap’s other brands, including Banana Republic, Old Navy and Athleta and was part of an effort to “improve scheduling stability and flexibility” for workers.

Spokeswoman Laura Wilkinson says the change will apply “across our global organization” and that the company is working to establish scheduling systems giving store employees at least 10 to 14 days’ notice.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office sent letters to Gap and 12 other retailers earlier this year questioning them about on-call scheduling, which required hourly workers to stay on-call for shifts set the night before or the same day, giving them little time to arrange for child care or work other jobs.

“Workers deserve stable and reliable work schedules, and I commend Gap for taking an important step to make their employees’ schedules fairer and more predictable,” said Schneiderman, a Democrat.

Abercrombie & Fitch and Victoria’s Secret also ended the practice this summer.

Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, said in a statement that Gap’s decision reflects not only Schneiderman’s concerns but also a new ordinance in San Francisco requiring chain retailers to set schedules in advance. Similar proposals are pending before other city governments.

“Working people in hourly jobs are starting to speak out about the impact that employers’ scheduling practices has on their lives,” Gleason said in a statement.

Source: CBS DC

San Diego Free Press - March 13, 2012, by Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment - When it comes to foreclosing on Californians, it looks like Wells Fargo may take the prize. According to a report released today, Wells Fargo is responsible for more homes in the foreclosure pipeline in California than any other single lender.

Wells Fargo is servicing the most loans, but they are providing less principal reduction to struggling borrowers than either Bank of America and Chase – who themselves should be doing more! The recent report from the Monitor of the multi-state Attorneys General settlement with the five big mortgage servicers showed that Wells Fargo trails behind Bank of America and Chase when it comes to the amount of principal reduction given as part of first lien loan modifications.

This is the very same Wells Fargo that just had its most profitable year ever in 2012, with earnings of $19 billion.

The report, California in Crisis: How Wells Fargo’s Foreclosure Pipeline Is Damaging Local Communities, by ACCE (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment), the Center for Popular Democracy and the Home Defenders League, shows the harm coming to homeowners, communities and the economy unless Wells Fargo reverses its course and averts some or all of the impending foreclosures.

Click here to download the report.

The report uses data from Foreclosure Radar to look at loans currently in the foreclosure pipeline in California – meaning loans that have a Notice of Default or Notice of Trustee Sale. Of the 65,466 loans in the foreclosure pipeline, close to 20% of them are serviced by Wells Fargo.

If Wells Fargo’s 11,616 distressed loans go through foreclosure, California will take a next $3.3 billion hit: Each home will lose approximately 22 percent of its value, for a total loss of approximately $1.07 billion; homes in the surrounding neighborhood will lose value as well, for an additional loss of about $2.2 billion; and government tax revenues will be cut by $20 million, as a result of the depreciation.

And not surprisingly, African American and Latino communities will be particularly hard-hit. The report includes maps for seven major cities showing minority density and dots for each of Wells Fargo’s distressed loans. In city after city, they are heavily clustered in neighborhoods with high African American and Latino populations.

“My community has been absolutely devastated by the foreclosure crisis, and I put a lot of the blame at the doorstep of Wells Fargo,” says ACCE Home Defenders League member Vivian Richardson. “Wells Fargo’s heartless and unfair foreclosure practices are sending far more homes into foreclosure than is necessary.”

San Francisco Supervisor David Campos released a statement of support: “Our communities and our entire State are still reeling from the housing crisis, and will be for years to come. As this report shows, the numbers of homes still facing foreclosure is enormous. Principal reduction is clearly a critical strategy for saving homes and stabilizing the economy. Wells Fargo and the other major banks should be doing more of it.”

The report recommends:

Wells Fargo should commit to a broad principal reduction program.

This means that every homeowner facing hardship should be offered a loan modification, when Wells has the legal authority to do so. The modification should be based on an affordable debt-to-income ratio, achieved through a waterfall that prioritizes principal reduction and interest rate reductions. Junior liens must also be modified.

Wells Fargo should report data on its principal reduction, short sales, and foreclosures by race, income, and zip code.

Wells Fargo must be more transparent about its mortgage practices. The bank has an egregious history of harming California’s African American and Latino communities through predatory and discriminatory lending. To show the public that it has reformed, Wells Fargo must make this data available. The people of California need to know that Well Fargo is no longer discriminating against people of color and is fairly and equitably providing relief to homeowners and to the hardest hit communities.

 Wells Fargo should immediately stop all foreclosures until the first two demands are met.

In the event that it takes a few months to set up a fully functioning principal reduction program, Wells Fargo needs to immediately stop all foreclosures. Wells Fargo has done enough harm. It’s time to stop. California deserves a break.

ACCE is waging a campaign to push Wells Fargo to be a leader in California, their home state, in saving homes – beginning with their performance to comply with the Attorneys General Settlement and with the Homeowner Bill of Rights, but not ending there.

Click here to sign on to a letter to Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf to support to campaign demands.

 

Source

 

Philadelphia Inquirer - October 1, 2014, by Martha Woodall - A new report from a trio of activist groups says Pennsylvania charter schools have defrauded taxpayers of more than $30 million because oversight is so lax.

The researchers call for a temporary moratorium on new charter schools, contending agencies are not able to adequately monitor the 186 charters that already exist.

The study by the Center for Popular Democracy; Integrity in Education; and Action United of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh was to be released Wednesday.

The report urges the state Attorney General's Office to review all Pennsylvania charters for potential fraud. It asks the legislature to require charters to undergo regular fraud-risk assessments and fraud audits. And it suggests that until the law is changed to require such actions, charters should voluntarily undergo them and make the findings public.

Researchers said most of the $30 million in fraud that has been detected since the state's charter law was passed in 1997 was not uncovered by charter-oversight offices but by whistle-blowers and the media, including The Inquirer. They said the total amount of misspent funds was likely far larger.

"The current oversight system in Pennsylvania falls miserably short when it comes to detecting, preventing, and eliminating fraud," said Kyle Serrette, education director at the Center for Popular Democracy in Washington.

The center receives funding from foundations, including $990,000 this year from the Ford Foundation. It also receives a small amount of support from teachers' unions, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, is on the organization's board.

Robert Fayfich, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, said that while his group supports accountability, the report makes "sweeping conclusions about the entire charter sector based on only 11 cited incidents in the course of almost 20 years."

". . . Fraud and fiscal mismanagement are wrong and cannot be tolerated, but to highlight them in one sector and ignore them in another indicates a motivation to target one type of public school for a political agenda," he said in a statement.

Pennsylvania school districts paid $1.5 million to charters that enrolled 128,712 students in 2012-13. More than 67,000 Philadelphia students attend 86 city charters.

Sabrina Stevens, executive director of Washington-based Integrity in Education, said: "With over $1 billion going to charter schools in Pennsylvania, it's time for charter schools to be held to the same standards of transparency and oversight that public schools are held to."

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said it's "good that they put this together," adding that Serrette's group had testified at a charter-oversight hearing his office held in March. "To me, the more voices on this, the better. I think in the next term in the legislature, there is going to be a charter-reform bill move forward."

City Controller Alan Butkovitz said the report echoed concerns he raised in 2010, when his office released its own oversight study that highlighted several problems his office found at city charters.

"We certainly agree with the need for greater oversight and auditing," Butkovitz said. "That's been one of our constant themes."

The instances of fraud cited in the new report include cases where charter officials were indicted or pleaded guilty and instances uncovered in state audits.

Examples include Nicholas Trombetta, founder and former CEO of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School in Midland, who is awaiting federal trial in Pittsburgh on charges that he diverted $8 million in school funds for personal use.

The tally also includes $6.3 million that federal prosecutors allege Dorothy June Brown defrauded from the four Philadelphia-area charters she founded.

But the authors give special attention to another recent case involving a city charter: New Media Technology Charter School in the city's Stenton section. The former CEO and founding board president went to federal prison in 2012 after admitting they stole $522,000 in taxpayer money to prop up a restaurant, a health-food store, and a private school they controlled, and for defrauding a bank.

From 2005 to 2009, when the crimes were occurring, third-party auditors hired by New Media failed to spot the fraudulent payments.

"Fraud detection in Pennsylvania charter schools should not be dependent upon parent complaints, media exposés, and whistle-blowers," the authors wrote. Rather, they urged, the system should be proactive and use forensic accounting methods.

According to the report, Pennsylvania's charters are vulnerable to fraud and financial mismanagement because school districts and state offices charged with overseeing them lack resources and staff.

For example, although the cash-strapped Philadelphia district has about half of the state's charters, it has only two auditors and a small office to monitor 86 schools, the report said.

"We agree in the need of greater oversight and a deeper look into the health of charter schools," district spokesman Fernando Gallard said, "and we have taken steps to do so."

Although the district's charter office at times had only two or three staffers, Gallard said, it now has six and is seeking an executive director.

Researchers also said that charters lack strong internal fiscal controls and that their boards have not adopted strict management policies.

And even though the charters are required to have annual audits performed by outside firms, researchers said, those audits rely on general accounting techniques and are not designed to detect fraud.

"The current system of oversight relies heavily on information provided by charter schools themselves and traditional audits that are designed to check accuracy rather than detect and prevent fraud," the report said.

The report said taxpayers cannot afford to lose another $30 million in misspent charter funds. "While the reforms proposed will require additional resources," the authors said, "they represent a smart investment in our communities and in our future."

Researchers said the study was the first in what would be a state-by-state investigation of oversight of charters in the 42 states that have them.

Serrette said researchers decided to begin with Pennsylvania because the timing seemed right. He pointed out that both DePasquale in Harrisburg and Butkovitz in Philadelphia have highlighted the fraud risks in charter schools. And State Rep. James R. Roebuck Jr. (D., Phila.), minority chairman of the House Education Committee, introduced a bill last year to tighten charter controls.

Said Serrette: "The stars are aligning."

Source

Dec. 1 — More than a dozen states and cities in the past year considered legislation to require retail stores and restaurants to provide extra pay to employees for last-minute work schedule changes. Thus far only a handful of cities have enacted such measures into law.

These predictive or predictable scheduling proposals, also called fair workweek measures, were “very popular” in 2016, John S. Hong, an employment law attorney with Littler Mendelson in San Francisco, recently told Bloomberg BNA.

“But they died on the vine in a lot of states,” Hong said.

In addition to providing “predictability” pay, these measures would require employers to notify workers about their schedules a certain number of weeks in advance under predictive scheduling proposals. They also include “access to hours” provisions that require employers to offer newly available hours to part-time staff before hiring new workers or using contractors or staffing agencies.

Worker advocacy groups praise these measures as providing secure, clear and stable scheduling for workers. But employers counter that these requirements remove the flexibility needed for retailers and restaurants to operate their businesses effectively.

Predictive Scheduling Is ‘The Next Fight.’

Predictive scheduling bills this year were withdrawn or never went to a vote in California, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, New York and Rhode Island.

Similar bills or provisions died in Connecticut, Illinois, Maine and Oregon in 2015.

Washington, D.C., also tabled a predictive scheduling proposal this year, while a court rejected a ballot initiative on the issue in Cleveland, Hong said.

Still, employee advocates said the number of jurisdictions that have considered scheduling laws is encouraging.

Introduction of the bills initiates public conversations among workers, employers and policy makers about the issue, they said.

“They begin the legislative process, which can take multiple years,” Elianne Farhat, deputy campaign director of the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fair Workweek Initiative.

Predictive scheduling is “the next fight,” following the success of the “Fight for $15" minimum wage initiative, Farhat told Bloomberg BNA Nov. 30.

“The issue will continue to pick up steam and move forward,” she said.

Two Cities Join San Francisco

Two cities this year enacted predictive scheduling laws. Seattle and Emeryville, Calif., followed in the footsteps of San Francisco, which passed the nation’s first ever predictive scheduling law in late 2014

Rules implementing San Francisco’s ordinance went into effect in March 2016. They apply to businesses that have 20 or more employees in the city and at least 40 retail sales establishments worldwide.

Seattle and Emeryville’s laws take effect in 2017.

Seattle’s law applies to retail and quick or limited food-service establishments with more than 500 employees worldwide and full-service restaurants with more than 500 employees and 40 full-service locations worldwide.

Emeryville’s law applies to businesses with more than 55 employees worldwide.

New Hampshire, San Jose Also Pass Laws

On the predictive scheduling periphery are San Jose, Calif., and New Hampshire, which passed narrower laws in the past year.

San Jose voters approved a ballot initiative in November that focused only on access to hour protections for part-time employees, meaning they would be given extra hours prior to hiring others.

New Hampshire in June didn’t quite enact a predictive scheduling law. Instead, it required employers to consider employee requests for flexible working arrangements and prohibited employers from retaliating against workers who made those requests.

The New Hampshire law is “minimal, but still important,” Liz Ben-Ishai, senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C., told Bloomberg BNA.

Farhat added that Washington, D.C. passed a law guaranteeing a 30-hour minimum workweek for building service workers, although it tabled its broader predictive scheduling law.

Depending on the needs of a particular locality, some cities or states will pass broader scheduling laws, while others pass narrower provisions.

“They’re all part of updating our work hour standards,” Farhat said.

Looking Ahead to 2017

Predictive scheduling bills are pending in New Jersey and Massachusetts, Hong said. But the latter “may die for lack of action” before the end of the year.

A measure also is pending in Minnesota, according to CLASP data, but it may share the same fate as the Massachusetts bill.

Asked if the issue of predictive scheduling will continue to crop up in 2017, Hong said more cities and states may consider such measures. But “ultimately they may die on the vine,” he said.

Ben-Ishai provided a more optimistic outlook for predictive scheduling.

“I think it’s a promising area moving forward,” she said.

State and local lawmakers in Oregon could consider predictive scheduling measures next year, she said. In 2015, a state predictive scheduling bill died in committee, but legislators preempted scheduling ordinances at the local level only until 2017.

Portland, Ore., already has passed a resolution to study and eventually establish workweek principles for city contractors, Farhat said.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio in September announced that the city is developing legislation that would require predictable work schedules for about 65,000 hourly fast-food employees in the city.

Predictive scheduling is expected to come back in Washington, D.C. next year “in a very serious way,” Farhat said. And California may onceagain consider a statewide measure, she added.

Don’t Forget About State Preemption Laws

Hong observed that several states have preemption laws that prevent cities, towns and counties from passing workplace laws that conflict with state or federal law.

About 22 states so far have expressly preempted localities from adopting such laws, like those that would raise minimum wages, provide leave benefits or expand workplace anti-discrimination protections. Most of these state have enacted the laws within the last five years., Lawmakers in about 11 other states have introduced similar bills so far in 2016.

At least five states—Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas and Michigan—have laws that could preempt local predictive scheduling laws, Hong said.

Preemption laws don’t necessarily indicate that legislatures are against fair scheduling, he said. “They don’t want local governments doing something potentially inconsistent with state law,” Hong said.

But Ben-Ishai contended that preemption laws can be a strategy taken by lawmakers who “are not friendly to workers’ rights.”

Federal Predictive Scheduling Law?

A federal predictive scheduling bill known as the Schedules That Work Act ( H.R. 3071, S. 1772) was introduced in both houses of Congress in July 2015.

The identical bills were sponsored by democrats and have remained stalled in committee. They are unlikely to be considered for a vote before the year ends.

Ben-Ishai said she expects the bills’ sponsors, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), will reintroduce the legislation in the next Congress.

But given Republican control of both Congress and the White House, Ben-Ishai said, “I don’t think we’re super optimistic about it moving forward.”

Predictive scheduling will have a better chance at seeing “more movement” at the state and local levels, she said.

By: Jay-Anne B. Casuga

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